Independence Day
by Diva'sDream
Summary: Songfic This is what I think could’ve been the outcome of the situation between Alistair and Katherine had Martin not come into the picture. My first “Passions” fanfic, please be kind.


Independence Day  
  
By: Diva'sDream  
  
Category: Drama/Tragedy  
  
Rated: PG-13  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own "Passions" or and of its characters. I also do not own the song, "Independence Day". It's owned by Martina McBride.  
  
Summary: (Songfic) This is what I think could've been the outcome of the situation between Alistair and Katherine had Martin not come into the picture. My first "Passions" fanfic, please be kind.  
  
............................................................................................................  
  
[Well she seemed alright by dawn's early light  
  
Though she looked a little worried and week  
  
She tried to pretend he wasn't drinkin' again  
  
But Daddy left the proof on her cheek]  
  
"Mommy? Is something wrong?" asked 8-year-old Sheridan as she walked into the kitchen that morning, followed by her older brother, 14-year old Julian, and noticed her mother, Katherine, sitting at the table with a sad look in her eyes. It looked to Sheridan as though her mother had been crying.  
  
This was nothing new. It seemed that Katherine was always crying nowadays, though she tried very hard not to let her children see it. For them, she tried to make herself look as strong and composed as she always had been before. But, it seemed to Katherine, that it was getting increasingly harder every week to hide her true feelings from her children, as well as from everyone else.  
  
Oh sure, by the early morning light, which, it was pretty early at the moment, she looked alright to most people, but then again, the ones she loves aren't most people.  
  
Julian put a reassuring hand on his mother's shoulder. "Mother?" he asked her quietly, gently touching her cheek, badly bruised from the night before. "Did Father do this to you? Did he hurt you again?"  
  
Katherine tried to avoid her son's and her daughter's gazes, knowing that if she looked them in the eye, she wouldn't be able to lie to her beloved children. "No, Darling, of course not," she lied.  
  
"Well, are you alright?" Julian pressed on, knowing that something was wrong.  
  
"Yes, Dear," came his mother's depressed reply. But then she smiled at remembering the day. "Oh, and happy 4th of July, Julian and Sheridan!"  
  
"Oh, that's right, Julian, it's the 4th of July!" Sheridan gasped excitedly. (She loved to see the fireworks every year.) Julian just smiled in reply.  
  
She tried to act like nothing had happened last night. She tried to act like her husband, Alistair, had not gotten himself drunk yet again and ended up striking Katherine across the face with his fist, causing her to fall to the floor and a big bruise to form where he hit her. But, she couldn't hide all of this from her children, who knew their father, and knew her, all too well.  
  
[I was only eight years old that summer  
  
And I always seemed to be in the way  
  
So I took myself down to the fair in town  
  
On Independence Day]  
  
Sheridan, who stood in the doorway into the kitchen, asked, "Are you sure you're alright?" She looked just as concerned as Julian did.  
  
Before Katherine had time to answer her daughter's question, they all heard heavy footsteps coming towards the kitchen. The next thing she knew, Sheridan felt a strong hand on her shoulder and gasped in surprise as she was pushed to the side, her father stalking past her. Sheridan caught herself just as she was about to fall over and steadied herself, fighting back tears.  
  
Katherine stood up as her husband stopped in front of the table. "What's the hell is all the ruckus in here?! Can't a man get any sleep around here without people running all around the house?!" Alistair, still in his night robe, boomed as he looked from face to face.  
  
"Oh Alistair, I wish you wouldn't be so rough with the children—" Katherine started. Before she could finish this thought, however, Alistair slapped her across the face, sending her crashing to the floor.  
  
"Shut up! And you, Julian, take your sister and get out of my sight, now!" Alistair ordered his son, pointing his finger at Julian in emphasis. Then, he watched as Julian walked passed him and took his little sister's hand gently.  
  
Thinking quickly, Katherine stood up and turned to her son. "Ummm...Julian, honey? There's a fair in town today. Why don't you take your sister go down there? Hmm? It's right down the road. You can see it from here." She smiled at him as though nothing were wrong as Julian nodded as he and Sheridan went out of the room.  
  
[Well word gets around in a small, small town  
  
They said he was a dangerous man  
  
But Mamma was proud and she stood her ground  
  
She knew she was on the losin' end]  
  
She waited until she heard the front door shut. Then, with the children safely out of harms way, Katherine turned back to Alistair. "Wait a minute! Where are all the maids and everybody else?! Why are we the only ones in this house?!" Alistair suddenly questioned his wife, becoming suspicious that she had something to do with it.  
  
"I gave them all the day off, Alistair. I thought we could use some alone time," Katherine replied, hiding her true intentions well.  
  
"You bitch! How dare you do something like this without my consent!" Alistair suddenly backhanded her across the face, again knocking her to the floor. "I thought I had made it clear after people started getting suspicious about the way I treat you and the children that you were to get my permission before you do anything big."  
  
"Alistair," Katherine said to him, "you know that when people questioned me about that, I denied it. And you know why that is, Alistair. I love you. I would never betray you—" Before she could finish, though, Alistair kicked her hard in the side.  
  
Alistair's temper was flaring. "Shut up! Who said that you could talk?!" he yelled and kicked her again.  
  
Katherine simply dropped her gaze to the floor. 'It looks like there's only one way out of this one. But any way you put it, my children only half-win, and I lose,' she thought to herself in despair.  
  
[Some folks whispered  
  
Some folks talked  
  
But everybody looked the other way  
  
And when time ran out there was no one about  
  
On Independence Day]  
  
"Julian, everyone's looking at us funny again," Sheridan whispered to her brother as they walked around the fairgrounds. People had been doing the exact same thing at seeing them for a long while now. Everywhere they went, people would turn their heads and look at the poor children of that tyrant, Alistair Crane.  
  
Oh yes, they all knew what kind of a man Alistair was; after all, Harmony was a pretty small town and news travels fast and also has a way of getting out even when it's tried to be kept secret. But nobody did a thing about it, since Alistair didn't hit the children and Katherine had always done such a good job of covering up her bruises so no one would see them and bother the family. So, they'd just receive looks whenever in public.  
  
But the bad side to this is that, if something terrible happened because of this situation, no one would be around to help Katherine and the children. Sure, everyone knew that Alistair was mean to them, but because of Katherine hiding her wounds so well, no one really suspected it was abuse anymore.  
  
Even with all of the strange stares coming from every which-way they looked, the Crane children still tried to enjoy themselves at the fair that day.  
  
[Let freedom ring  
  
Let the white dove sing  
  
Let the whole world know that today  
  
Is a day of reckoning  
  
Let the weak be strong  
  
Let the right be wrong  
  
Roll the stone away  
  
Let the guilty pay  
  
It's Independence Day]  
  
Katherine sat at the foot of her bed after having been beaten yet again by Alistair. It was time to put her plan into action. The door to their room had already secretly been locked. See, she'd given all of the hired help the day off so they wouldn't be killed too. After many nights of consideration, Katherine had decided on this important decision, and now it was time to see it through.  
  
Very quietly, so as not to be heard, Katherine got up, and got a box of matches out of the dresser drawer. As she took one out and lit it, she thought to herself sorrowfully, "At least my darling children will finally have a chance at a happy and better life. And I think that Harmony will be much better off without the Crane Empire."  
  
A tear escaped the corner of her eye as Katherine turned and lit the curtains in front of her on fire and then, proceeded to do the same to everything else in the room. Then, she set fire to the area just in front of the door leading out of their room, inside which, was Alistair, fast asleep and now, locked in his own room without a way to get out besides Katherine, who's love for her husband, despite what he'd been doing to her for all these years, kept her in the room to die with him; and he didn't even know it.  
  
Then, with the tears streaming down her face by now, Katherine simply sat back on the foot of her bed, and waited for the flames to engulf her.  
  
[Well she lit up the sky that Fourth of July  
  
By the time that the firemen come]  
  
Sheridan reacted to the sirens before Julian did and turned to look in the direction the noise seemed to be coming from. To her horror, the noise was heading towards her home. She fearfully looked towards her house and gasped in terror within an instant of seeing her home, the place she'd grown up in, engulfed in flames. "Julian!" she then yelled.  
  
Julian automatically turned around and looked at his little sister. Then, his gaze switched to what Sheridan was pointing to. Julian took his sister by the hand then and went running towards the house with his sister trailing behind him.  
  
[They just put out the flames and took down some names  
  
And sent me to the county home  
  
Now I ain't sayin' it's right or it's wrong  
  
But maybe it's the only way  
  
Talk about your revolution  
  
It's Independence Day]  
  
The firemen were everywhere trying to extinguish the inferno. When Julian and Sheridan got to the house, they where automatically identified as the Crane children and taken to a police car by a woman and told to wait in the car. Julian looked around at everyone that had gathered around. The police were talking to the citizens that had collected around the area, no doubt trying to find out if anyone knew what had happened.  
  
The small sound of Sheridan's weeping brought him back to his senses and he turned back around in his seat, trying to comfort his sister. "It's alright, Sheridan. Everything's going to be all right, I promise," he soothed her, hugging her tightly and trying to fight back the tears that were starting to form in his eyes as well.  
  
Sheridan opened her mouth to speak but stopped abruptly when the policewoman who had taken them to the car climbed in the drivers seat and started to drive off with them. "Miss? Excuse me? Miss? Where are we going?" Julian asked her.  
  
"I'm sorry kids," the woman said sadly, almost breaking down right then and there. "Your mother and father didn't survive the fire. And, sense you don't have any relatives that we know of, I'm gonna have to take you to the local children's home. I'm sorry." Telling them this news seemed almost too hard for the woman to do.  
  
Sheridan only cried harder at hearing this. "Sheridan, it's going to be okay. I think I know what happened; Mother was trying to save us from the life we were living. Now, it might not have been the right way to do it, but then again, it might not have been the wrong way. Maybe Mother thought it was the only way. She gave her life for us so that we could be happy. Trust me, Sheridan, everything's going to be all right," Julian again tried to reassure his sister, almost sounding as if he were trying to make himself believe it too.  
  
[Let freedom ring  
  
Let the white dove sing  
  
Let the whole world know that today  
  
Is a day of reckoning]  
  
It had been three months since the fire, and there was a big surprise awaiting Julian and Sheridan when they got back from the field trip that they and the other kids in the children's home were on. They should be home any minute. In fact, the front doors then opened and in came all of the kids.  
  
One of the staff members working in the home waited by the door for Julian and Sheridan to come in. "Julian, Sheridan?" she called to them as they walked in the front door. "Could you too come with me? I've got a surprise for you." And with that, Sheridan and Julian followed the woman to the front office, where a man behind a large desk and a nice-looking couple waited for them.  
  
Sheridan smiled sweetly as she walked in and Julian looked relieved. They pretty much had an idea of what was going on. "Julian? Sheridan? We have something to tell you," the man, Mr. Rowland, the person in charge of adoptions, said as he smiled at them sweetly. "These nice people wanna meet you. They think they wanna adopt you," he told them.  
  
Well, the looked on both Sheridan and Julian's faces were ones of pure bliss. The woman then got up from her seat and knelt down in front of the children, as the man remained in his seat, smiling at them kindly. "Hello darlings, my name is Pilar and this is my husband, Martin. We are so happy to meet you both."  
  
[Let the weak be strong  
  
Let the right be wrong  
  
Roll the stone away  
  
Let the guilty pay  
  
It's Independence Day]  
  
Two weeks had passed since Sheridan and Julian met the nice couple. Now, they were walking in the door, just returning from making the two children an official part of their family. From that day on, the two were to be known as Sheridan and Julian Lopez-Fitzgerald. And now they were seeing their new home and their new siblings for the first time in those two weeks.  
  
As they walked through the front door, four other kids walked into the room. "Sheridan? Julian?" Martin said as he turned to face his new son and daughter. "These are your new siblings. This is Antonio," he introduced one of them, pointing to a boy with light brown hair, who nodded in reply.  
  
Then, he pointed to one with short black hair. "This is Miguel." Next, he pointed to a boy with slightly longer black hair. "This is Luis." And finally, be pointed to the last kid, a girl with long ebony hair. "And this is your new sister, Theresa." Theresa smiled sweetly.  
  
"And, kids?" Pilar suddenly spoke up. "Guess what. Soon, Sheridan, you're going to be an older sister. I just found out that I'm going to have another baby."  
  
Sheridan gasped in surprise at hearing this news. She had always wanted to be a big sister. "Yay!" she exclaimed happily. "What are you going to name it?" she asked her new mother.  
  
"Well," Pilar told her, "If it's a boy, we're going to name him Martin Jr. and if it's a girl, we're thinking that we're going to name her Paloma." ............  
  
[Roll the stone away  
  
It's Independence Day]  
  
............................................................................................................  
  
A/N: Well, there it is. Sorry it was so long, but I couldn't help myself. I hoped you liked it. Plz r&r. Flames NOT welcome! My first "Passions" fanfic, plz be kind. See ya later!!! 


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